Monday, March 25, 2013

On March 23, 1929 the brand new Mark Twain Hotel opened at
the corner of West Gray and North Main Streets in Elmira. The opening was a
grand event with a gala reception, speeches, music and dancing that lasted
until the small hours of the morning. Six hundred invited guests came to see
the finest hotel between Buffalo and New York City. The local newspapers of the
time were filled with stories of the hotel’s opening. The architecture, layout
and décor of the building were described in fine detail as were the fashions worn
by those attending the opening event.The
new hotel boasted 250 rooms (each with its own bath), five dining rooms, four
restaurants, three elevators, convention facilities and a ballroom that could
accommodate 350 guests.The hotel’s Georgian
architecture was praised for blending stately dignity with the air of
hospitality.

The hotel was designed by George Post who has been credited
with developing the standard plan for modern hotels with double loaded
corridors and a bath in every guest room.While planning took nearly 25 years, Lowman Construction Co. of Elmira
was able to build the hotel in less than a year at the cost of nearly $1
million.It was named, obviously, after
the writer Mark Twain. The names of various rooms referenced his life and
literary works and were decorated to match the theme. The coffee shop, for
example, was called the Mississippi
and had murals of the river around the walls. A riverboat’s pilot wheel decorated one dining
room and a famous mural on the second floor depicted Huck Finn and Jim from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The Mark Twain Hotel saw its golden era during WWII and in
the post-war years.By the 1960s, though, travelers had come to
prefer staying in motels and the hotel went into decline.In 1973, after almost 45 years in business,
it closed to the general public. Mark Twain Properties, Inc. purchased the
building and converted it into apartments and office spaces.Today, the Mark Twain Building keeps its
connection to the past with a museum of artifacts and memorabilia on the
second floor that celebrates the history of the hotel.

Monday, March 18, 2013

On
Saturday, March 16th, the CCHS hosted 61 area students at Southern
Tier Regional History Day.What is
History Day? you might ask.Well,
History Day is a national competition that promotes interest and research in
history.Students start by selecting a
topic based on the annual theme.This
year’s theme is Turning Points in History.They then conduct primary and secondary research, analyze and interpret
that research and produce a paper, documentary, exhibit or website.The Southern Tier Regional is the first step
for local students.The best entries
here go on to the State competition and then possibly on to the Kenneth E.
Behring National History Day Contest that will take place at the University of
Maryland at College Park in June.

This
was our tenth year hosting the event and it is wonderful to see so many
students and teachers involved.Students
presented papers, exhibits and documentaries to our volunteer judges.The competition was fierce with so many
high-quality entries but in the end 11 students were awarded medals and will be
moving on to the next level of the competition.

Carrie Wang and CCHS Director Bruce Whitmarsh

Senior
Paper:

1st
– Carrie Wang – World War II and Women’s Role in Society: Integrating the
Workforce

Monday, March 11, 2013

“Washed
in the forenoon and sowed till night then ironed the white clothes.George a went to the Corners with Jacob
Enat.”- Kate Synder diary, February 4,
1880.

Laundry.It’s a dull but necessary task and one
traditionally assigned to women.In the
days before electricity and washing machines (days still ongoing in many parts
of the world) cleaning clothing was both time consuming and backbreaking.Water had to be boiled and clothes had to be
soaked, scrubbed, rinsed, wrung out, hung out to dry and, if you were feeling
ambitious, ironed.It was a process that
could literally take all day and give a housewife muscles like a
longshoreman.

Of
course, not all laundry was created equal.A wealthy upper class woman was not doing her own wash.Instead, she either paid domestic servants to
do it in house or sent her washing out to a laundry service.In 1890, there were 12 industrial laundries
in the City of Elmira as well as an unknown number of poorer women who took in
washing which they did in their homes.For women with children, taking in laundry was the perfect job.It allowed them to keep an eye on the younger
kids, take advantage of the labor of the older ones and put food on the table.

Neighborhood House Laundry Class, 1905

The
first electric washing machine hit the market in 1900, but it would be years
before it really revolutionized the way people cleaned their clothes.Early washing machines were expensive costing
as much as $3.90, which was twice what the most expensive manual washers
cost.They also required electricity
which was slow to spread across Chemung County.While the City of Elmira was electrified in 1900, some of the more rural
parts didn’t have power until the 1930s.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Come to the CCHS on Tuesday, March 5th, 6:30-8:30 pm and Salute Your Favorite Woman in History at the Festival of Women in the Arts Opening Reception. The festival, which is coordinated and sponsored by the Cantata Singers, is a month-long celebration of Women's History Month. Visit www.cantatasingers.com for more information and a full schedule of events.

Our region is filled with women, both past and present, who deserve to be recognized for their accomplishments. Dr. Frances
Mabel Flood Heath, better known as Mabel, is one. She was born in Elmira on April 6, 1884 to
Thomas and Frances Miller Flood.Her
father, Thomas, was a local pharmacist and politician and her grandfather,
uncle and cousin were all physicians.In
1911, she followed family tradition and graduated from Buffalo Medical College.After briefly working at a hospital in
Buffalo, she returned to Elmira in 1912 and opened her own practice.

In
1917, the American Red Cross put out a call for female physicians to help with
the war effort and Mabel, along with her cousin Dr. Regina Flood Keyes of
Buffalo, answered the call.The two
women were posted in the Balkans where they established the American Women’s
Hospital in Monastir, Serbia.The
hospital had 65 beds, saw nearly 3,000 out-patients a month and had a
reputation of being the best hospital in the Balkans. Regina served as surgeon
and commanding officer while Mabel oversaw the medical cases.The two saw the hospital through the flu
epidemic in 1918 and an epidemic of typhus in 1919 while still managing to
educate young Serbians on basic medical care.For their efforts, both women were awarded medals and honored by the
governments of Serbia, France and the United States.

Mabel
returned to the United States in 1920.On the steamer ship back she met Alfred Heath of Liverpool, England, one
of the ship’s officers, and the two were married on August 31, 1920.The Heaths returned to Elmira where Mabel
re-established her medical practice and Alfred went into the dry cleaning
business.The couple had a daughter
Marjorie Louise in 1922.Dr. Mabel Flood
Heath died less than six months later on April 26, 1923 from complications
following an operation for appendicitis.On May 3, 1927 she was posthumously awarded the Order of St. Sava by
King Alexander of Serbia which her daughter received on her behalf.

Mission

The Chemung County Historical Society seeks to deepen its audiences’ understanding of the past and the role of history in our futures by collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history and material culture of Chemung County and the surrounding region.